The First Crack: $270 Billion In Student Loans Are At Least 30 Days Delinquent

Back in late 2006 and early 2007 a few (soon to be very rich) people were warning anyone who cared to listen, about what cracks in the subprime facade meant for the housing sector and the credit bubble in general. They were largely ignored as none other than the Fed chairman promised that all is fine (see here). A few months later New Century collapsed and the rest is history: tens of trillions later we are still picking up the pieces and housing continues to collapse. Yet one bubble which the Federal Government managed to blow in the meantime to staggering proportions in virtually no time, for no other reason than to give the impression of consumer releveraging, was the student debt bubble, which at last check just surpassed $1 trillion, and is growing at $40-50 billion each month. However, just like subprime, the first cracks have now appeared. In a report set to convince borrowers that Student Loan ABS are still safe - of course they are - they are backed by all taxpayers after all in the form of the Family Federal Education Program - Fitch discloses something rather troubling, namely that of the $1 trillion + in student debt outstanding, "as many as 27% of all student loan borrowers are more than 30 days past due." In other words at least $270 billion in student loans are no longer current (extrapolating the delinquency rate into the total loans outstanding). That this is happening with interest rates at record lows is quite stunning and a loud wake up call that it is not rates that determine affordability and sustainability: it is general economic conditions, deplorable as they may be, which have made the popping of the student loan bubble inevitable. It also means that if the rise in interest rate continues, then the student loan bubble will pop that much faster, and bring another $1 trillion in unintended consequences on the shoulders of the US taxpayer who once again will be left footing the bill.

Fitch believes most student loan asset-backed securities (ABS) transactions remain well protected due to the government guarantee on Family Federal Education Program (FFELP) loans. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently reported that as many as 27% of all student loan borrowers are more than 30 days past due. Recent estimates mark outstanding student loans at $900 billion- $1 trillion. Fitch believes that the recent increase in past-due and defaulted student loans presents a risk to investors in private student loan ABS, but not those in ABS trusts backed by FFELP loans.

Why is the bubble starting to pop now?

Several macroeconomic factors are putting pressure on student loan borrowers. The main ones are unemployment and underemployment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the current unemployment rate for people 20 to 24 years old at nearly 14% and for those 25 to 34 years old, 8.7%. Underemployment is difficult to measure for these demographics, but it is likely having a negative impact.

A month ago, Zero Hedge readers were stunned to learn that unemployment among Europe's young adults has exploded as a result of the European financial crisis, and peaking anywhere between 46% in the case of Greece all they way to 51% for Spain. Which makes us wonder what the reaction will be to the discovery that when it comes to young adults 18-24) in the US, the employment rate is just barely above half, or 54%, which just happens to be the lowest in 64 years, and 7% worse than when Obama took office promising a whole lot of change 3 years ago.

And while technically this means 46% are unemployed, or the same percentage as in Greece, the US ratio, which comes from Pew, shows the ratio as a % of the total population: a very sensitive topic now that every month we see another 250,000 drop off mysteriously from the total labor force. However, unlike those on the trailing age end, young adults by definition are the labor force in their age group demographic, so it would be difficult to explain away this horrendous number by claiming that ever more 24 year olds are retiring. Although, yes, we agree that some may be dropping out of the labor force in order to go to college, incidentally the locus of the latest credit bubble, where they meet a fate worse even than secular unemployment: they become debt slaves of the Federal System, with non-dischargable debt at that, which even assuming they can get a job would take ages to pay back!

But wait: there's more - of all age groups, this is the one that has actually seen its wages drop the most under the Obama administration.

So not only are they unemployed, young adults are at least poor.

Net result: double the change, zero the hope.

But fear not dear banks: taxpayers got your back, as usual.

However, we believe that ABS trusts backed by FFELP loans are unlikely to be affected by employment trends, as they are at least 97% backed by the federal government. In addition, recent securitizations have been structured more robustly and many have backup servicing agreements.

Even so, Fich is covering its bases nonetheless:

While FFELP loans are largely protected from these trends, private student loan ABS trusts, especially those that were structured aggressively and with less stringent credit standards before the recession, are expected to continue experiencing high defaults and ratings pressure. Fitch will continue to monitor these political and macroeconomic factors as they evolve and will determine any impact they may have on ABS trusts.

And as a courtesy reminder to our young up and coming "thinkers", this is $270 billion in debt that can not be discharged. Go ahead - file for bankruptcy - see what happens.

The question then is - what is the student loan version of the ABX trade. After all if Bernanke is willing to blow another bubble, someone has to be able to profit when this latest soon to be failed attempt at central planning.

The average outstanding student loan balance per borrower is $23,300. Again, there is substantial heterogeneity in balances of individual borrowers. The median balance of $12,800 is roughly half the average level, which indicates that a small fraction of people have balances significantly higher than the median. About one-quarter of borrowers owe more than $28,000; about 10 percent of borrowers owe more than $54,000. The proportion of borrowers who owe more than $100,000 is 3.1 percent, and 0.45 percent of borrowers, or 167,000 people, owe more than $200,000. The distribution also varies by age group: for example, borrowers between the ages of thirty and thirty-nine have the highest average outstanding student loan balance, at $28,500, followed by borrowers between the ages of forty and forty-nine, whose average outstanding balance is $26,000 (see chart below).

How much difficulty are borrowers having paying back their debts? Of the 37 million borrowers who have outstanding student loan balances as of third-quarter 2011, 14.4 percent, or about 5.4 million borrowers, have at least one past due student loan account. Together, these past due balances sum to $85 billion, or roughly 10 percent of the total outstanding student loan balance. To put this in perspective, the same 10 percent rate applies on average to other types of household delinquent debt, including mortgages, credit cards, and auto loans. Does this mean that the prospects for student loan delinquencies are similar to those for the household debt in general, and thus no special attention is warranted? (See chart below.)

Unfortunately, this is not the case—some special accounting used for student loans, not applicable to other types of consumer debt, makes it likely that the delinquency rates for student loans are understated. In the case of federally backed loans, which represent a majority of total lending, repayment is deferred until the student graduates from school and can then be pushed back by another six-month grace period. How do these student loans in deferment or grace periods show up on credit reports and contribute to the delinquency statistics? Given that no payment is necessary until graduation, these deferred student loans are not included in the past due balance but they are included in the total balance from which the delinquency rate is derived. This may help explain the low proportion (12.6 percent) of borrowers with past due student loans among those under thirty years old, compared with 16.9 percent among those between the ages of thirty and thirty-nine, since many of the younger borrowers are still in school and don’t yet have to make any payments.

To address this potential bias in calculating delinquency statistics, we exclude individuals who appear to be temporarily exempt from making payments because they are in school or newly graduated from school. These are students who, as of third-quarter 2011, owed as much as or more than they did in the previous quarter while maintaining a zero past due balance. We will be able to make our inference more precise when loan-level panel data are available, but this is our first-cut analysis given the available data. We warn that there is room for misclassification in this analysis. For example, there could be borrowers who are subject to the income-based repayment plan whose payment fell short of the accrued interest, resulting in a balance that increased. Recall that this exercise looks at the student loan borrowers who have a balance as of third-quarter 2011; therefore, those who had taken out a loan at one point but paid it off before third-quarter 2011 are not accounted for.

From this exercise, we find that as many as 47 percent of student loan borrowers appear to be in deferral or forbearance periods, and thus did not have to make payments as of third-quarter 2011. Specifically, 17.6 percent of borrowers had exactly the same balance in the third quarter as in the second quarter of this year, and 29.1 percent increased their overall student loan balance by taking on new originations or accruing interest to the balance.

We then recalculate the proportion of borrowers with a past due balance excluding this group of borrowers. We find that 27 percent of the borrowers have past due balances, while the adjusted proportion of outstanding student loan balances that is delinquent is 21 percent—much higher than the unadjusted rates of 14.4 percent and 10 percent, respectively (see charts below).

In sum, student loan debt is not just a concern for the young. Parents and the federal government shoulder a substantial part of the postsecondary education bill. Moreover, the student loan delinquency picture is not fully captured in the broad statistics since a significant proportion of borrowers and balances are not yet in the repayment cycle. The implications of this last fact for future changes in the student loan delinquency rate are a very important area of research.

Given that student loans are an indispensable tool for educational advancement, this form of debt will remain a critical policy focus for generations to come. Going forward, we will continue to monitor the student loan market with new data each quarter, and we will try to provide useful information on the landscape of student debt.

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Our peerless leaders will enlist indebted students into the next war for 'repayment'. If they say no, its okay with me, they'll be incarcerated in a correctional system that is unsustainable as well. Everyone seems to have forgotten how the media and politicians have pushed 'get an education, get an education' in an endless stream of drivel for many, many years. What difference would an education make if good jobs have been leaving the country in droves for years? Globalism was pushed as some type of 'raise all boats' thing and it has been everything but that for most of America. None of it ever made sense and it has all been spun to point at the victims rather than the perps of the collapse of America's economy. Where's Milton Friedmans' grave? I've got loaf to pinch off.

The next thing I know, there is a new "Univeristy" there where the grocery used to be. These four classroom "Universities" now outnumber the McD's and Starbuck's in my city.

Good to see evryone wants a "degree of higher learning" funded by the US taxpayers who will ultimately lick up the bill when $1 trillion of student loans go belly up and the student loan corp screams,"No one saw this coming."

yes...i read a really sad/awful story a year ago or so, of parents who son died after graduation and were on the hook for the entire student laon and there son was 6 feet under .......and the fuckers were still going after the parents house

I lucked out with some grants that paid for my grad school. It's seriously tempting to get trained in a 2nd career rack up debt then bounce but eh I don't think I would learn anything worthwhile from more college... maybe electrical engineering? suggestions?

You're a woman so you didn't "luck out." Males were discriminated against in your favor. The fact that 70% of college graduates are women these days doesn't seem to bother anyone. I know some high school teachers and they say 75% of their AP students (advanced placement, where you earn college credits while in high school) are white females. I tell them, "well the entire American education system has been run by white females for 40 years, so of course the system these white females have created is most compatible with people like themselves - white females." But they don't seem to see the logic in that statement. Apparently I'm just crazy and white females are intellectually superior to all other gender and race combinations. Never mind that the public education system rewards obedience, docility, rote memorization, and completion of busy work - all things women excel at academically. Seems those rowdy boys don't like busy work, rebel against things perceived as stupid and pointless, and prefer creativity over rote memorization and regurgitation of facts. Oh well, just one more reason America's decline will continue.

The fact that you think you can "get trained in a second career" in academia is fucking hilarious. Yea, you'll be fully qualified to both suck dick and read books after your 10 years in college. You'll be like these stupid cooze's I've had to work with, with their master's degrees, but inability to actually do any work. Whining about needing "training" to learn how to use our tools. It's fucking pathetic watching women try to make it in the IT field. Thank god they all get quickly promoted to program management due to affirmative action quotas requiring women in management jobs, where they just answer emails all day and feel important, because they are technically incompetent.

How about you go get a fucking job Sandra Fluke? So far you've done nothing with your life but live on welfare/debt while enriching your college professors. And when you do finally go get a job, don't think for a second that you're qualified for it based on your degree(s).

Thanks, I wish I could say the same for so many of America's "new negroes", the white man, that have been suffering under our racist anti-white government these past 30 years.

Luckily, with hard work, a high IQ, and time spent in the military, I was able to raise myself up to an equal footing with "minorities" in this country. Veterans, after all, qualify as "equal persons" with other affirmative action recipients, whereas mere white men are second class citizens. And I got most of my college paid for, something "minorities" get just for expressing a vague desire to study "something" in college.

Best of all? I've worked hard enough to escape from this anti-white fascist police state called America. I'll be moving to Europe permanently in a few months. America doesn't want me here, and has made that fact abundantly clear through my life time of being discriminated against. I hope they have pop corn in Europe, I'll need a few bag fulls as I watch America's continued decline from overseas these next few decades.

I got into an arguement with a liberal chick and I told it's idiotic to major in Female Studies or History since there is no job market for that. She got pissed off. I told her that ever since the govt got involved, prices have skyrocketed. I gave her the ex that Ron Paul went to undergrad and grad school debt free. I gave her the Harvard tuition rates before and after govt interference. Still these libs don't understand.

"Privately held DesertXpress is on the verge of landing a $4.9 billion loan from the Obama administration to build the 150 mph train, which could be a lifeline for a region devastated by the housing crash or a crap shoot for taxpayers weary of Washington spending."

This happens during rough sex when the female gets extremely wet and the man is thrusting the entire lenghth of his fuck stick in and out of her gushing gash. He then gives her a good jam and unknowingly enters her backdoor and slides all the way up her turd tunnel. Generally, this will force the session to come to an abrupt stop as the woman struggles to catch her breath, while the man rinses the kidney bean off the end of his purple headed yogurt slinger.
G, Did you hear that bloody scream last night in the hotel? I think Mike gave Crystal an "Oopsie Poopsie"

Relax, these kids will be fully mobilized, er, employed on the mid eastern front within several years, for the Homeland you see. God Damn that sounds so, so, familiar. That's it, have been watching lots of the History Channel, "The Last Days" about the collapse of the Nazi Regime.

Good thing the video game industry will have these fartlings battle ready by the time they step off the bus at Camp Lejeune

I hope they draft you to serve as an infantry officer on the front lines with your fancy debt funded degrees. Maybe they'll grant student loan repayment for serving in WW3. Finally minorities will be pulling their weight in this country. Just desserts I say.

I forgot to point out in my other response to you elsehwere in this comments section that the reason the American military is mostly white men is because the country so thoroughly discriminates against us that we have few other choices in life than joining the military. And status as a veteran puts us on equal footing with minorities in college admissions and in the work place. We have to risk our life, our health, and our sanity serving in America's wars of imperial conquest just to get on an equal footing with minorities.

I am only a man. Just a man that woke up to realize all of the things he was told about the world his whole life were a lie. The things I know about the world, people like you can only imagine. Now go watch TV; go back to sleep. You don't want to know what I know. And you're better off not knowing. The truth is not meant for the sheeple.

I remember cheerleading the collapse of New Century Financial and the housing bubble bust. It was awesome watching the carnage, and still is. We recommended everyone stop paying their mortgages at the time, as it was the right thing to do. We now recommend All students with student loans stop paying their loans on worthless educations, as the government can't get all of them, and it will be great TV viewing.

The Banks, Govt, Universities, Businesses s are all complicit in selling the Education to success dream to the kids. College or failure. It is exactly like the home loan scam. Sell the dream of home ownership to everyone possible because tons of self interested organizations feed upon it. Students feel like it is required to get ahead and in this economy fewer parents can afford to pay for it, so kids are stuck with leveraging their future due to societal pressure on parents and children and honestly most dont have a clue what it costs to live once they get out. Universities are not going to dissuade them. Who is going to counsel them ON the real facts of expected income, real job prospects, costs to live etc. etc. to realize how best to make decisions on loans. Most parents cannot even understand what it takes to make a house payment. Millions of adults took on more debt than they could afford to buy a house. I have seen so many middle class people lose their homes because they bought too much house just like you are saying too many kids are buying too much education. They dont know. They think they are doing what it takes to succeed and instead they are selling their soul. Of course the colleges will say, What is the price of ignorance? An education for many may be the highest price thing they ever buy and the sellers LOVE IT.

I paid my way through college and graduated in 2006 with 22k in debt. My first job paid 13.75/hr, and I paid off 50% of the loan after 1 year. The entire loan was paid off after 2 years. I had to make sacrifices to do it. e.g., no Iphone, no data packages (!), roommate, cheap apartment, no Whole Foods, but it's possible (and quite easy, to be honest). People don't know how to budget, make sacrifices, or give up the American Dream. If you do those things and live within your means, paying off debt isn't difficult. Also, I'm tired of these people who take out loans acting like victims. Before taking out a loan, understand it. If you don't, then you're the sucker who was born that particular second. It's not the prudent's responsibility to pay off the imprudent's errs. It's societal/governmental decisions like this that will soon have savers 100% in gold.

Also, I wish the mainstream media would tell my story instead of portraying debters as victims. I took on debt and was not a victim of it. I have an 810 credit score and a large nest egg, and all it required was being semi-prudent, responsible, investigative, and owning my choices.

Here is the play:
1) the 'everyone gets a trophy just for showing up' generation is coming of age
2) they took on huge student loan debts
3) the quality of available jobs has cratered
4) not only are the trophies all gone, so are the decent jobs
5) they cannot service the debt, sell their used Kias on craiglist and move back in with the 'rents
6) college enrollments collapse with student loan market
7) university systems cut jobs and slash pay
8) 100% of professors drive Volvos
9) professors resort to buying used Kias on craiglist
10) short VOLV B

They might have to live at home for a few extra years, but they can service the debt. The paradigm must shift from "they can't service the debt" to "they can't service the debt and live the (comfortable) lifestyle they envisioned."

It's more accurate to say, "they don't want to live a lifestyle that would allow them to service the debt."

I hate to see Ron Paul's name associated with 9/11 conspiracies. It really does nothing to help his political cause and much to undermine it.

I find it impossible that any 9/11 conspiracy could have involved the U.S. government because the vast majority of federal employees are simply too stupid to pull something of that scale off in completely secrecy. And someone would have spilled the beans. Furthermore, federal employees aren't evil, and neither is the government. Clueless and incompetent? Perhaps. But not evil. Almost all of them, in fact, think of themselves as the "good guys" in this global play.

Israel in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, I can't say. The Mossad is essentially a terrorist organization in and of itself, what with their assassination teams and such, so I find it plausible that they could have carried out 9/11 to unleash America's military upon its regional enemies.

So I dismiss the "U.S. government did 9/11" conspiracies outright. The government and its employees are not evil. They genuinely believe they are the good guys and that the actions they are taking, even the TSA, is for the benefit and safety of the United States and its people.

The most likely explanation is that 9/11 was simply blow back from decades of American foreign policy in the middle East combined with the incompetence of the aforementioned federal employees in identifying and stopping the 9/11 plot.

Our govt. is RIDDLED with Zionist sympathizers and dual citizens....all agencies important to intelligence, national security, security, military, and telecom have been infiltrated. Tons of Israel owned front companies had high levels of clearance and infrastructure access.

So, while Israel had the TRUE motive, and organized things behind the scenes, certain Americans in high places that share Zionist/NWO agendas helped out a great deal.

I see more Mormons and Catholics occupying director level SES/GS-15 positions than I do any other group. Does Israel have moles in every single agency of the government? Of course. But that is by design.

Because you're filling in the blanks with your imagination. If you had walked the halls of power, the places supposedly involved in these conspiracies, you'd know it to be impossible. The people working at these places are too incompetent to ever pull something like that off. And, like I said, they aren't evil, just misguided. You'd be hard pressed to find a single man in a million among federal/military employees that would participate in something like that. 99.9% of federal/military employees think of themselves as "the good guys" and truly believe they are serving to protect and strength the U.S.

The world must be a scary place for someone with a low IQ. You think there are evil geniuses lurking around every corner, occupying your government, and conspiring to kill 3,000 Americans as part of some evil plot.

Nice to see both you guys on the "fuck you, I'll get mine" selfish plan. You obviously don't know they go back 7 years into your finance if you try to leave the USA or keep more than $10k in an overseas account and don't report it.

Off topic but does anyone else have problems with the new yahoomail?? I delayed as long as possible and eventually they forced me into. What a bunch of phoney bologna bullshit worthless fucking pc programming whores!! Is it really that fucking hard!! If the fucking shit doesn't fucking work.......then don't fucking put it out. "our latest and greatest!". Fuck you pos cum belching whores! You are really fkn pissing me off!

Just Gen Y and M taking their " retirement entitlement" funds in advance......becuase they arent dumb enough to think they will get anything by the time they retire.... ( after spending a working life contributing to the welfare of the great generations that have gone before them) . They WILL default en mass........and who can blame them with all the shit going on around them.

The Mexicans, as they gain a majority of the U.S. population, are going to brutalize blacks in ways that we are only beginning to realize. All notions of "white guilt" slide off of Hispanics like eggs off teflon coated cookware. The past few decades negroes have been getting away with murder, literally, as they brutalized whites in the schools and on the streets. But Hispanics are going to put them in their place - mostly in prison and 6 feet under ground.

What you see in the news with this Florida shooting is a pre-emptive strike against Hispanics by the pro-black Jew controlled U.S. main stream media. They want to start calling Hispanics "white Hispanic" in the hopes that white liberal guilt can be transferred to Hispanics. But I don't foresee that working out for them.

Again, I'll be eating popcorn in Europe while the Hispanics and negroes tear this country to the ground.

Agreed. During my loan repayment, I was "delinquent" more than once, but continued to pay. The loans can also be deferred due to hardship for a period of years. It's a process that can be drawn out a very long time. What I've noticed, is many of the people I know with essentially worthless degrees, returned to school for something more marketable. No sympathy from me for those that thought a degree in "kinesiology" was the path to riches. If they were dumb enough to go into debt for something that worthless,then lesson learned. If you agreed to repay a student loan, then be a big boy/girl, and pay it back if at all possible. One of the things I frequently see is the perception of being victimized by people who obviously contributed to their "victimization". Somehow they were duped by a cunning (fill in the blank), and now are happy to blame everyone but themselves. If you talk to older (70's on up) Americans, they rarely portray themselves as victims. The cultural shift just in my lifetime is shocking. The character of the average person I meet is a watered down, inept version of what I saw even 20 yrs ago. Regardless of what "system" emerges from this mess, without essentials like personal accountability, we're fucked.

Oh nooooo! Zimmerman was a mentor to two black children for free??? This might throw the racebaiters seeking profit another curve ball:

"George Zimmerman suffered a broken nose, and had an injury to the back of his head, he was attacked by Trayvon Martin on that evening," Sonner said. "This was a case of self defense."

Sonner said the so-called stand-your-ground law, under which a person who feels threatened is not required to retreat and can "meet force with force" if attacked, will be applicable in the case.

Sonner insisted that Zimmerman is not a racist, pointing out that he and his wife mentored for two black children for free.

"When I asked this mother [of the mentees], who trusted [Zimmerman and his wife], and she's an African-American, if she trusted George Zimmerman, she said she did, and I asked her if there was anything that caused her to believe that she was a racist, and she said, 'Absolutely not.' And I said, went further, 'Did you ever hear him use racial slurs in any time that you'd been around him?' And she said, 'no' as well," Sonner said.

With re-fi's and home-equity loans no longer possible, families that need continued life-style spending, are flocking to the one currently wide-open source for easy cash that's unsecured.... student loans. Families are not missing this obvious easy play:

1. Families needing cash can send their kids to school where student loans cover the costs of the child.... reducing the family burden significantly ("one less mouth to feed"). Just gotta say "we just can't afford you at home anymore honey; you need to go to school". This alone saves a bundle to spend elsewhere.

2. Money that parents had previously held for education can now be raided. Oh yeah! Cash in those savings bonds from grama... bonus!

3. Best of all, parents don't have to pay it back! Its the kids problem. Extend and Pretend bitchez!!! Families learning from our Government that you don't have to pay debt, just get someone else to worry about it.

Far better than any re-fi or a mortgage ever was.... student loans provide wide open unsecured cash. No wonder that about a trillion dollars of new student loans have occurred in the past few years. Who says Americans are not the smartest consumers in the world? Where's there's a will and an unplugged hole, then there is a way. Its too good to pass up.

Public colleges should offer courses with MUCH lower tuition. But then we would have to cut back on bankster handouts, building a Homeland police state, propping up drug lord allies, and waging endless wars, invasions, and military occupations.

The young, the old and the sick will suffer from this collapse of the infrastructure and rampant fraud. You can rest assured a massage parlor with a young single mother or student trying to come up with their rent will be on every corner.

Civilized society was not created for any other reason than to protect the weaker from exploitation. The men, young or old, will be able to hold their own. But, when no one is watching, the rest of us will pay the price and suffer a lifetime for the unchallenged lawless shift of assets from the US middle class to the upper class and those who play Russian Roulette in the American stock market.

You and your Viagra-enhanced erection will have plenty of choices, you are correct. Let it be that you have a daughter, niece, sister, babysitter who looks at you and realized that it is because of men like you we are where we are today. You're probably sucking your own cock on video as I type this, so in love with your sorry self.

It's okay. What does not kill us will make us stronger. But we'll never forgive you.

But boys, one last thing, thanks for nothing. You are cowards and mommy's boys who haven't the guts to go beyond your keyboard and stand up for what is right.

If American women weren't so worthless and dangerous to take as wives maybe we wouldn't be fucking your 19 year old daughter for $100 while she whores her way through college.

Females are an asset that declines in value as they age. Any woman past menopause might as well kill herself because she is completely worthless. 30 and over is almost as bad. Women have the best chance of giving birth to healthy children at ages 17 to 21.

When society does collapse we will have a return to normalcy. Women will return to their nominal real value - almost nothing, but based solely on looks and youth (for child bearing).

They wana raise Taxes to like 46% for most business owners, meanwhile canada has what? a 15% rate?

LOL why the fuck am I still in America.

Fuck man, why the fuck do the productive people have to support the whole world... the fucking govt just robs 50 ~ 70% of a mans labor to feed people who don't give a shit about the guy whos busting his ass to produce enough to feed his family.

If you combine all the taxes in New York you probably endup paying 70~80% of your income to taxes.... probably more if you work for a "union" and pay another 46% of your paycheck out to them for "benefits LOL/Sarcasm benefits".

Fucking scam city.

Shit man I remember working union and paying that crap , the state + union + feds got more of my check than I did, for what?

Right to work is the way to go... it would put all these students to work also.... unions are criminal enterprises meant to rip off customers to give under-skilled un-deserving un-competative people work.

You're right. You should join me in Europe. If you're going to live under socialist tyranny you might as well live around other white people. You might as well not live in fear of the murderous police. You might as well not live in a fascist police state.

Capital flight from the fascist police state known as the United States of America is only just beginning. If you're smart you'll get out before the exit visas and exit taxes are imposed.

maybe I read too fast but the catchy title of the article does not make sense to me.

At the beginning, it says: "as many as 27% of all student loan borrowers are more than 30 days past due. In other words at least $270 billion in student loans are no longer current (extrapolating the delinquency rate into the total loans outstanding)."

Much lower, it says:

a) "From this exercise, we find that as many as 47 percent of student loan borrowers appear to be in deferral or forbearance periods, and thus did not have to make payments as of third-quarter 2011."

b) "Together, these past due balances sum to $85 billion, or roughly 10 percent of the total outstanding student loan balance."

c) "We find that 27 percent of the borrowers have past due balances, while the adjusted proportion of outstanding student loan balances that is delinquent is 21 percent—much higher than the unadjusted rates of 14.4 percent and 10 percent, respectively (see charts below)."

=> The true delinquency rate is indeed 27% as is explained, but the true amount of delinquency is approx $85 billion, not $270 billion.

America is falling in line with the rest of the New World Order. Mandating health care. Telling us how to spend our money. Where to live. What to do. Raising taxes.

So we're going to be like Europe, except full of non-white savages. Whites will be havily taxed to support non-whites.

Fuck that. I'm moving to Europe. If I'm going to live under socialist tyranny I want to be surrounded by white people and I want my insane taxes to go to white people, not illegal immigrants and their anchor babies.

Wake up! For the most part, people don't behave a certain way because of their skin color or ancestory. They behave a certain way due to the nature of the system established and enforced by the current batch of predators-that-be. If you put whites in the same situation non-whites are put in, they will not behave any different given a generation or two for habits to gradually change.

So why not focus on the problem, which is the predators-that-be and predator-class. They and their ideas is what destroyed the world. Anyone who accepts any form of tyranny is part of the problem. Leave the USSA? Yes! Either leave or fight. But knowingly become a slave of yet another tyranny? What BS.

Much of the student loan debt & delinquincy is NOT due to the pursuit of a college education.

Student loans were available for private schools offering such courses as hairdressing, truck driving, and "clerical" training. And many private "certificate" schools were scamming the system. They enrolled unqualified students who were almost certain to fail, and unemployable even when "passing" the training. Of course, the school still got paid the loan by the government.